THE BLACK ALBUM
It was always going to be Paint It Black. There was never really a question, though there was a strange collision – collusion? – of the elements.
There was my mood.
There was my colour of choice.
There was the colour of the sky.
There was the summer.
There was my favourite music.
There was my mood.
There was a colour my bank manager had never seen.
Then there was the name of the first CD I’d bought for a good while – Black Sheep. I’ve always been a fan of Cope, from his early gorgeous pop to latterly his mad infatuations with stone circles – I went to Callanish last year, one of the maddest weekends – to his love of Krautrock – which ever since I heard Tago Mago in maybe 74 I’ve always loved – to his determination to do things his own way – which I’ve always aspired to though mostly lacked the balls to follow through with. He’s become interested in William Blake recently and the new CD is enriched by a Blake-ism: “Create your own system of become enslaved by another Man’s”.
Seems reasonable to me. (That’s actually also a Fall lyric, from Before The Moon Falls, Dragnet, 1979).
I always keep an eye on his Head Heritage website and when I read that he had a new album…
So I bought it. Of course, it’s largely bollocks – a double CD, natch - but that’s what happens when you release stuff yourself on your own label and there’s no one around, except maybe your kids, who’s gonna say “Actually, that’s bollocks”. But there are a few good things, especially the title All the blowing-themselves-up motherfuckers (will realise the minute they die that they were suckers)
So…
The Black Sheep's Song - Julian Cope
The Black Sheep’s Song is a lovely idea. “To rally every black sheep is my goal” it says on the album sleeve – and there are a fair few black sheep on this CD.
Am I Black Enough for You - Schoolly D
A proper bad man. Top tune though. I remember the NME tried to champion him in the early days – till they realised he was proper bad. Play this loud and it resonates big time.
Reverend Black Grape - Black Grape
Black Grape always get lost in the pipe smoke of the Mondays, but they made some great tunes. Back in the day I tried to commission Sean Ryder to write a piece called It’s Great When You’re Straight for The Observer. Don’t bother trying to find it on the web.
Black Heart - Keith Hudson
There’s a story about Keith Hudson. When Richard Branson was launching his Front Line series – what was that? 1976? – he went over to Jamaica to hang out with all these dudes that he’d signed up from the comfort of those Tubular Bells royalties. So Branson was playing the black man, giving it a load of I’n’I nonsense and they all played along with him cos he was paying them. Then he met Keith Hudson who’d had a huge success with a tune called Civilisation. Except Hudson was a proper job gangster who took one look at Branson, pulled a gun and gave him a count to get out.
These days Branson sponsors Andy Murray and Hudson is dead.
Good tune though, from a top album called Pick A Dub.
Black Erotica - Ursula Rucker
Mmmm. This one’s interesting. She’s an odd one, is our Ursula. Obsessed you might say. The only recording artist who washes their hands before and after.
Black Dog - Led Zeppelin
What else could follow that?
Black Monk Theme - The Fall
You probably haven’t heard of The Fall, but you’re gonna have to trust me on this one. This is a cover of a song called “I Hate You” by The Monks, a Nuggets-era bunch of tripped out psycho hippies. But it’s got the best lyrics ever and is the perfect riposte to Ursula Rucker.
You can look them up, but it’s funner (an old Ellie word) to listen and smile as you catch Smith bark
“Seep seep seep to sleep,
The drill scaffold starts
Power drill dog bark renovate stone blast
I'm coming
Because you make me hate you baby”
Black Coffee In Bed - Squeeze
Possibly the finest pop song ever written called Black Coffee In Bed. Actually you might argue those last five words are superfluous. Impossibly well crafted, it’s the form at it’s finest.
Black Tie White Noise (3rd Floor US Radio Mix) - David Bowie
Bowie’s most under-rated album. Every Bowie album past Scary Monsters has been
A) hailed as a return to form by pop hacks who know that if they don’t write that they won’t have an earthly of an interview and they’re all desperate for an interview because they, like the rest of the world, are huge Bowie fans and would sell their granny for a chance to break bread with the man.
B) Utter bollocks.
There have been the odd single and the odd flourish, but mainly it’s been a disappointment. I think it’s cos he started eating, but that’s another story.
Black Tie White Noise is the nearest he’s come.
Black Crow - Joni Mitchell
Something for Chris. A lovely tune from Hejira, Joni’s Golden Period.
Black Corridor – Hawkwind
More words of wisdom from Robert Calvert. It’s odd that the longer he goes on, the more he sounds like a Dalek.
Black Snake Moan - Blind Lemon Jefferson
Seemed reasonable to have some blues on a Stones-inspired CD.
Blacks/Radio - The Psychedelic Furs
Something for Tim. Actually I probably scagged this from one of Tim’s CD. Back in the pre first album time, they were actually quite good. When they were happy to be primitive. The voice is still grief.
Blacka Shade Of Dub - Scientist
Black Man Time - I Roy
Black Harmony Killer - Jah Stitch
Black Diamonds - Roland Kirk
A while back Johnski and I had a bit of an e-flurry about Rip, Rig & Panic, a bunch of honking, squonking post Pop Group ne’er do wells. They took their name from a Roland Kirk album and – guess what – this track comes from that album.
All the blowing-themselves-up motherfuckers (will realise the minute they die that they were suckers) - Julian Cope
He’s probably got a point, you gotta admit.
Paint it Black - Metallica
I found a few mad versions of the tune – Rammstein were good, as was an unnamed German techno version, U2 was straight bollocks – but this I liked. Cos it’s so horrible.
Poppy
Tuesday 9 September 2008
Sunday 7 September 2008
My summer
This is how my summer has been
A few weeks ago, I decided to sell my car. I liked the car, I liked enough that – and I only thought about this later – when Ellie once idly asked me what was the best car I ever had, I thought a bit and said “This one”. Still, a few weeks ago I decided to sell the car. It was a big 2.6 litre beast, lovely to drive but very expensive to run. In the time I had it, just over a year, the cost of filling it up had gone up over £25. The eco jihad? No, it just cost a lot.
I bought the car for £2,200 so I decided to sell it for the same. If it didn’t go… well, at least I tried.
On August 20 – an auspicious date as you’ll find out – I received an e-mail from Ebay saying that the car had sold. For £2,200. I sent the buyer a mail. A nice bloke called Chris who, curiously, worked for an internet TV station for chartered accountants. He was from New Zealand. That was a Wednesday. We arranged for him to come to Lewes station on Friday – they were doing a special on tax evasion on Thursday – and all was good.
On Thursday I got in the car, pressed the button that operated the driver’s window. Nothing. Tried again. Nothing. It was broke. I took the car to the garage.
“Ah yes, you see it’s the motor. The whole thing will have to be replaced.”
“Blimey. Are you sure?”
“And of course the exhaust system.”
“Of course.”
£300. Plus VAT. It couldn’t have broken down a day later? It had worked perfectly all the time I had the car and that Thursday it broke.
That was how my summer has been.
This is how my summer has been
College finished. I got it done. Out of the way. I talked with Gill about the work I had to do over the summer. The projects. The ideas. The summer was full of potential, full of possibilities.
We had some friends round for Sunday lunch. It was, strangely for this summer, a lovely day. We were sitting on our deck with Fred and Sue – I’ll tell you about them later – and, as usual they were having a conversation at us when, kinda innocently, a wasp started bussing around my head.
Not even thinking about it, I waved it away, just like I’ve done a thousand times before. This time though was different. This time, as I waved, the wasp waved. We waved at each other. With each other. And, like old school rappers, we gave each other a high five. Well, I gave the wasp a high five. The wasp gave me a sting. On my hand. My right hand. The right hand which is the only hand I type with.
That wasn’t the bad thing. The bad thing was this. I had an allergic reaction to the sting. My hand blew up in an almost Elephant Man style. People looked at my hand like it was some Victorian curio. My rings got stuck. Not only did it hurt – and it did - I couldn’t move my hand or my fingers. For two weeks.
I’d never been stung before.
This is how my summer has been
Gill and I have been married, give or take, 13 years and five months. To someone who’s been married, say, 20 years that might not be much, but to someone who’s been married maybe just two years, it’s a lifetime.
People say to us “How do you keep yoiur marriage alive?” and we tell them of our devices. We even appeared in The Very Fine Daily Mail – a double page feature complete with photo shoot – talking about how we keep our marriage alive, how we keep the romance in our world.
Not long after we first got together, before we were married and before we even spoke of children, I packed a couple of bags, put Gill and Maxwell in the car, blindfolded the two of them – he was a terrible sneak – and took them off for a mystery weekend in The Isle Of Wight.
Since then, we’ve taken each other all over the world on mystery trips, the game being to see how far you can get the other person before they find out where they’re going. (Headphones and blindfolds are useful but you can’t stop idiot passengers reading The Time Out Guide Book To Rome or some idiot hostess declaring “Welcome to Nice”.)
Anyway, it’s been a bit of a summer and that’s brought on its own stresses so it was only a question of time before one of us declared “We’re going away next weekend, I’m not telling you where”. Gill arranged it. I was probably talking to mortgage advisors or legal solicitors or banks or bail bond bounty hunters.
We packed up the car – two adults, three children, three dogs, all our clothes and dog baskets, tenths, sleeping bags, duvets, pillows… With Gill you never know. I guessed we weren’t going to Prague but all the baggage really might have been a distraction.
Now then. My sister moved to Bournemouth in 1979, my mother moved in 1984 and I’ve been going down there every few weeks/ months since then. I’ve always been intrigued by a sign just by the New Forest which says “No Right Turn Till Rufus Stone”. What or who is Rufus Stone? What happens there? What might happen if you turned right before Rufus Stone? There are more questions than answers.
Anyway, so we’re driving along on the way to our mystery location, heading towards Bournemouth. Through the New Forest. Towards the sign. I’m driving. Gill’s saying “Left” or “Right”.
Gill says “Turn right at Rufus Stone”.
The weekend could only be fantastic. It could only be a treat. What happened was t his.
We pitched up at a camp site. Great. I’ve never been camping in a camp site.
Thye camp site is called Sandy Balls. Great. How many cheap gags to make the kids laugh can you get out of Sandy Balls?
It’s full of kids and dogs. Perfect.
What happened was this.
We made camp at around 5pm. We had a walk. I got hit by my mystery stomach condition. I was taken to Salisbury Hospital. I stayed there until Sunday afternoon when, car packed, Gill, the kids and the dogs came to pick me up and take me home.
On the way home, the girls said to me “Mummy was drinking wine outside the tent by herself”.
I’ve got to go to hospital on Sept 19th to have a cameradownthethroatoscopy.
“Is it going to hurt?” I said, like a true 50-year-old man.
“No, we’ll give you something that’ll send you away with the fairies.”
Grab that silver lining, I thought. Normally it costs me about £50 to go play with those guys.
This is how my summer has been
The mortgage went up £500 a month.
We decided we couldn't stay in the house.
We swung a deal.
We stayed in the house.
The deal went flat.
We couldn’t stay in the house.
That’s as much as I’m going to say about that.
But this is the thing. Then I sorted us out a deal to stay in the house. It’s not cheap, but we can manage it.
We’re staying in the house.
There have been a lot of ups and downs. Conversations around the table. Trips to London. E-mails with people who were probably wearing suits, the type you wear with your shirt tucked in and your stomach hanging out.
It's been difficult but we're staying in the house.
This is how my summer has been
My mother died.
That’s as much as I’m going to say about that one.
She’d been ill for a long time and many times I wished – for all our sakes – that she slip away.
She used to say to me “I wish I was on the top of a big slide and I could just slide…”
She’d started to call me Liam. Quite why this woman – born in Whitechapel of Polish immigrant stock and Jewish through and through should conjure up the name Liam… Who can say. I asked her once. She looked at me like I was an idiot. That’s when I thought she was going to live forever.
But she died. And you know what? It hurts more than the wasp sting and is more disorientating than the house business.
My mother died. On August 18.
On August 20 - Ellie's birthday, a day she'd been looking for f'ages - my mother had her funeral.
August 20. Ellie's birthday. Gill's parents' wedding anniversary. My mother's funeral. All of life.
This is how my summer has been
As I was driving from Laughton to Bournemouth after being told about my mother, I realised the curious ramification of her passing.
We wouldn’t be able to stay in the house. The detail is too sordid to go into here, but that’s the story.
We’re not staying in the house.
This is how my summer has been
I was going to turn 50 this summer. I knew it was coming – it’s not like you don’t get notification – so I decided to embrace it. I’d do what I do. I’d have a party. I was going to have a big party. I was going to be 50 – it wasn’t going to be me, you know what I mean?
We were going to have a theme party – 1973. It was my 50th, Ellie’s 13th and LouLou’s 10th. 73. (Quite how LouLou has got to 10… that’s another story).
People were coming from far and wide. They were going to camp. It would be a mini festival – just like our wedding renewal party – minus the guitar stomping.
We weren’t going to have a summer holiday – our money was going on the house, remember – and the weather had been appalling and our attempts at mystery romantic weekends had ended up in hospital, but we were going to have a big party.
The week before The Big Party… my mother died. I cancelled the party. It’s not that it didn’t seem right, it’s just that I couldn’t do it. I’d bought a massive version of the game Twister but I couldn’t do it.
Maybe we’ll do it later.
A few weeks ago, I decided to sell my car. I liked the car, I liked enough that – and I only thought about this later – when Ellie once idly asked me what was the best car I ever had, I thought a bit and said “This one”. Still, a few weeks ago I decided to sell the car. It was a big 2.6 litre beast, lovely to drive but very expensive to run. In the time I had it, just over a year, the cost of filling it up had gone up over £25. The eco jihad? No, it just cost a lot.
I bought the car for £2,200 so I decided to sell it for the same. If it didn’t go… well, at least I tried.
On August 20 – an auspicious date as you’ll find out – I received an e-mail from Ebay saying that the car had sold. For £2,200. I sent the buyer a mail. A nice bloke called Chris who, curiously, worked for an internet TV station for chartered accountants. He was from New Zealand. That was a Wednesday. We arranged for him to come to Lewes station on Friday – they were doing a special on tax evasion on Thursday – and all was good.
On Thursday I got in the car, pressed the button that operated the driver’s window. Nothing. Tried again. Nothing. It was broke. I took the car to the garage.
“Ah yes, you see it’s the motor. The whole thing will have to be replaced.”
“Blimey. Are you sure?”
“And of course the exhaust system.”
“Of course.”
£300. Plus VAT. It couldn’t have broken down a day later? It had worked perfectly all the time I had the car and that Thursday it broke.
That was how my summer has been.
This is how my summer has been
College finished. I got it done. Out of the way. I talked with Gill about the work I had to do over the summer. The projects. The ideas. The summer was full of potential, full of possibilities.
We had some friends round for Sunday lunch. It was, strangely for this summer, a lovely day. We were sitting on our deck with Fred and Sue – I’ll tell you about them later – and, as usual they were having a conversation at us when, kinda innocently, a wasp started bussing around my head.
Not even thinking about it, I waved it away, just like I’ve done a thousand times before. This time though was different. This time, as I waved, the wasp waved. We waved at each other. With each other. And, like old school rappers, we gave each other a high five. Well, I gave the wasp a high five. The wasp gave me a sting. On my hand. My right hand. The right hand which is the only hand I type with.
That wasn’t the bad thing. The bad thing was this. I had an allergic reaction to the sting. My hand blew up in an almost Elephant Man style. People looked at my hand like it was some Victorian curio. My rings got stuck. Not only did it hurt – and it did - I couldn’t move my hand or my fingers. For two weeks.
I’d never been stung before.
This is how my summer has been
Gill and I have been married, give or take, 13 years and five months. To someone who’s been married, say, 20 years that might not be much, but to someone who’s been married maybe just two years, it’s a lifetime.
People say to us “How do you keep yoiur marriage alive?” and we tell them of our devices. We even appeared in The Very Fine Daily Mail – a double page feature complete with photo shoot – talking about how we keep our marriage alive, how we keep the romance in our world.
Not long after we first got together, before we were married and before we even spoke of children, I packed a couple of bags, put Gill and Maxwell in the car, blindfolded the two of them – he was a terrible sneak – and took them off for a mystery weekend in The Isle Of Wight.
Since then, we’ve taken each other all over the world on mystery trips, the game being to see how far you can get the other person before they find out where they’re going. (Headphones and blindfolds are useful but you can’t stop idiot passengers reading The Time Out Guide Book To Rome or some idiot hostess declaring “Welcome to Nice”.)
Anyway, it’s been a bit of a summer and that’s brought on its own stresses so it was only a question of time before one of us declared “We’re going away next weekend, I’m not telling you where”. Gill arranged it. I was probably talking to mortgage advisors or legal solicitors or banks or bail bond bounty hunters.
We packed up the car – two adults, three children, three dogs, all our clothes and dog baskets, tenths, sleeping bags, duvets, pillows… With Gill you never know. I guessed we weren’t going to Prague but all the baggage really might have been a distraction.
Now then. My sister moved to Bournemouth in 1979, my mother moved in 1984 and I’ve been going down there every few weeks/ months since then. I’ve always been intrigued by a sign just by the New Forest which says “No Right Turn Till Rufus Stone”. What or who is Rufus Stone? What happens there? What might happen if you turned right before Rufus Stone? There are more questions than answers.
Anyway, so we’re driving along on the way to our mystery location, heading towards Bournemouth. Through the New Forest. Towards the sign. I’m driving. Gill’s saying “Left” or “Right”.
Gill says “Turn right at Rufus Stone”.
The weekend could only be fantastic. It could only be a treat. What happened was t his.
We pitched up at a camp site. Great. I’ve never been camping in a camp site.
Thye camp site is called Sandy Balls. Great. How many cheap gags to make the kids laugh can you get out of Sandy Balls?
It’s full of kids and dogs. Perfect.
What happened was this.
We made camp at around 5pm. We had a walk. I got hit by my mystery stomach condition. I was taken to Salisbury Hospital. I stayed there until Sunday afternoon when, car packed, Gill, the kids and the dogs came to pick me up and take me home.
On the way home, the girls said to me “Mummy was drinking wine outside the tent by herself”.
I’ve got to go to hospital on Sept 19th to have a cameradownthethroatoscopy.
“Is it going to hurt?” I said, like a true 50-year-old man.
“No, we’ll give you something that’ll send you away with the fairies.”
Grab that silver lining, I thought. Normally it costs me about £50 to go play with those guys.
This is how my summer has been
The mortgage went up £500 a month.
We decided we couldn't stay in the house.
We swung a deal.
We stayed in the house.
The deal went flat.
We couldn’t stay in the house.
That’s as much as I’m going to say about that.
But this is the thing. Then I sorted us out a deal to stay in the house. It’s not cheap, but we can manage it.
We’re staying in the house.
There have been a lot of ups and downs. Conversations around the table. Trips to London. E-mails with people who were probably wearing suits, the type you wear with your shirt tucked in and your stomach hanging out.
It's been difficult but we're staying in the house.
This is how my summer has been
My mother died.
That’s as much as I’m going to say about that one.
She’d been ill for a long time and many times I wished – for all our sakes – that she slip away.
She used to say to me “I wish I was on the top of a big slide and I could just slide…”
She’d started to call me Liam. Quite why this woman – born in Whitechapel of Polish immigrant stock and Jewish through and through should conjure up the name Liam… Who can say. I asked her once. She looked at me like I was an idiot. That’s when I thought she was going to live forever.
But she died. And you know what? It hurts more than the wasp sting and is more disorientating than the house business.
My mother died. On August 18.
On August 20 - Ellie's birthday, a day she'd been looking for f'ages - my mother had her funeral.
August 20. Ellie's birthday. Gill's parents' wedding anniversary. My mother's funeral. All of life.
This is how my summer has been
As I was driving from Laughton to Bournemouth after being told about my mother, I realised the curious ramification of her passing.
We wouldn’t be able to stay in the house. The detail is too sordid to go into here, but that’s the story.
We’re not staying in the house.
This is how my summer has been
I was going to turn 50 this summer. I knew it was coming – it’s not like you don’t get notification – so I decided to embrace it. I’d do what I do. I’d have a party. I was going to have a big party. I was going to be 50 – it wasn’t going to be me, you know what I mean?
We were going to have a theme party – 1973. It was my 50th, Ellie’s 13th and LouLou’s 10th. 73. (Quite how LouLou has got to 10… that’s another story).
People were coming from far and wide. They were going to camp. It would be a mini festival – just like our wedding renewal party – minus the guitar stomping.
We weren’t going to have a summer holiday – our money was going on the house, remember – and the weather had been appalling and our attempts at mystery romantic weekends had ended up in hospital, but we were going to have a big party.
The week before The Big Party… my mother died. I cancelled the party. It’s not that it didn’t seem right, it’s just that I couldn’t do it. I’d bought a massive version of the game Twister but I couldn’t do it.
Maybe we’ll do it later.
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